


Beyond

by Nasyki Ikysan (Nasyki)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M, Triangle Bill Cipher
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasyki/pseuds/Nasyki%20Ikysan
Summary: Gravity Falls Cult AU.At five, Dipper Pines was a shy recluse. After stumbling into the mindscape of Bill Cipher and making a deal, it all changed: it got worse.





	Beyond

The darkness surrounded him in an endless abyss of the absence of light. Reaching and grasping at the imposing freedom around him did nothing to denote to the size of the unknown. There was a disjunction in his thoughts and feelings as he struggled to actualize himself. Simply suspended and without form or direction, he tried to rub his hands together for some amount of solace in the form of tactile reassurance; however, he could not find his hands to do so. There was an imperceptible anxiety that came from realizing one had no form and it made him gasp in a breath—but he couldn’t breathe—and so the fears amplified.

There was no escape from whatever this was. Thoughts of death and the world beyond ebbed into indistinct thoughts. Time did not seem to pass or pause: there was only the sensation of existence. Everything occurred in the possibilities of the dark—the voice of his fear supplied him with the example of the creatures that lurked in the shadows, but it was more than that. The pressure in his presence of mind denoted to something so much greater and so beyond his grasps. Thusly, he could only think, and feel, and understand in the general impressions of being on the cusp of an epiphany. It was something that was apparent, and simultaneously just beyond his reach.

Eventually, the coolness simmered into his emotions and brought him to a place of calm. Lights came to him like the opening of eyes. A haze of fireflies blinked into the black empty canvas. It started as a sporadic flicker, but then it was a shower of brightness. He realized all at once that this was a sea of stars in the velvet expanse of darkness. Drifting lazily whilst filled with awe and confusion he thought of stargazing on the temple rooftop with his sister.

The distance was ever expanding beyond his grasp. Frustration lilted into his mind in a gentle dance of anxiety and the unnatural calm that was slowly erecting a fortress in his mind. The tranquil was noted with trepidation. Though apprehension and fretfulness were synonymous with his person this…stillness was unnatural and superficial. But nothing could upset the calm waters that were slowly smothering him into a pacified tranquility. So he drifted in quiet culmination, at a pinnacle of involuntary inaction: a lack of mass or matter drifting as only a petty cloud of consciousness.

Unawareness descended like a haze acquired through a lack of focus. It wasn’t until one of the flickering pinpricks of stars in the distance had slowly lost distance and gained proximity, transitioning from a near-nonexistent thrum of light to a staggering sun of light and power. A trickle of fear passed through him like a muffled scream and was smothered into silence. Still, the energy drew nearer, or he drew nearer to the energy. All the while the light grew brightly and ate away at the darkness surrounding it. The light chased away the monstrous shadows like morning rays of sun chased away the night’s heavy presence. Though, strangely, there were no hues of color from the white light—there were only the hushed dim of shades of black that bled to lighter gray until gray turned white. The light grew wider and swallowed him whole where no black remained.

Suddenly there was ground below him. _Feet_ below him that were attached to short and childish legs to his lower body and abdomen and arms and hand—he reached his trembling hands to where his vision originated and felt his head. It was strange to go from nothing to existence. That thrill of panic thrilled through him again like the dying song of a bird and then there was that empty contentedness again. There was some relief too, that his body had not been truly gone—just temporarily misplaced. He didn’t want to think too long on the context of that concept. Instead, his feet drew forward to some unknown destination. It was as though he were being drawn toward something—as though this vast whiteness held some form of recognition and familiarity to him.

There was some hilarity to the notion as he would certainly remember having experienced a loss of body for any amount of time. Yet, notwithstanding the oddity of the situation, his body moved forward into the light. He cast no shadows as he walked. Though everything was white there seemed to be no direct light sources anywhere, rather it seemed as though everything permeated light. There was no way to differentiate the substance that he was walking on from the air around him. Scarcely could he tell what he was walking on at all. By all rights, it seemed that there was nothing there. On an impulse, he reached down to touch the surface. His heart skipped a beat as he kept on reaching. He saw the plane that his feet were on and his hands past it. He jerked his hand back and froze. Tentatively he lifted a leg to place on the empty space where his hand had gone with no resistance. His foot, however, met a solid surface. Now intrigued he brought his foot back to the other and crouched into a low position. Lifting his hand, he tried again to feel the mysterious surface and again his hand broke the line where the surface should be without any resistance. He waved and reached further down so that his arm was fully below where his body was positioned. He drew his hand closer and closer to himself. Eventually, his hand was resting against the top of his shoe with his fingers still reaching below him. Curiously, he curved his fingers and felt the soles of his shoes that were clearly resting on nothing. Body going ridged at the discovery, his heart skipped a beat as he waited to fall evermore into the abyss like a cartoon character did upon realizing that they had stepped off of a cliff. He squeezed his eyes shut, and yet nothing happened. He stayed that way, completely petrified for a time making sure not to move a muscle. Eventually, the chilling nothing pressed into his awareness and the fear drained from him. He hesitantly stood to his feet—legs shaking noticeably—as he felt suddenly cheated by whatever it was that was suppressing his emotions but somewhat grateful as at least now it meant he could move forward. He’d never been able to get over that kind of fear before without the help of his sister. He didn’t quite know what to think of the development, and so he did not think on the matter. Instead, he stepped a tentative and shaky foot forward and did not look down again.

Yellow: his mind supplied suddenly, after having walked to a point that his feet stopped shaking. As soon as he thought it—it was as though the entire world had shifted into the shockingly loud color. He paused for a moment as he was suddenly overwhelmed by the overwhelming amount of color. Blinking several times in quick succession he tried to adjust, but as soon as he did it was like a switch was triggered in his mind and he had a horrible and uncomfortable feeling of recognition. He somehow knew this place but he didn’t want to know why he did. The discomfort from this revelation was not soothed by that horrible numbness. The recognition in his mind also lit his nerves on fire as dread and hyperawareness became apparent. The emptiness around him buzzed and tremored, causing him to shake and tumble with it. His heart jumped up to his throat as he lost balance and found himself falling hands first to the non-present ground. He knew that it would not be there to catch him when he fell and was not surprised when his hands passed through and his arms and body followed suit. Suddenly, the world flipped upside down as his feet adjusted to the new surface that flipped below him. It was still shaking, and though he couldn’t tell where it originated the intense flare of fear that fed into him made him care very little.

A thick line of black appeared as a distant horizon. As his eyes followed the first forming and distinct object his mind was at a loss of what to think. Attention waned when it was suddenly redirected to a shatteringly shrill sound that burst like an explosion around him. Hands jerked to his ears as his eyes flinched shut at the shock of sound to break the eternity of silence that had settled around him. The black line suddenly spilt open, glowing red from the center. Entire body jerking to rapt attention as more lines began to branch from the only other things that existed besides him. The object continued to expand and glow a raging red. Fretfully, he dropped to his knees and fell through the ground again, and again until he finally stood up and reaffirmed his balance. Head spinning, he finally recognized the sound as a terrible and turbulent laughter, and the giant widening red gash in the sky as a floating eye. The second he realized it too, the entire space surrounding him split into little opening lines of red eyes, all trained entirely on him. His breath was lost as he tried to process what this could possibly mean, but the only thing that had come to mind was the stories of beasts and monsters that his family protected people from.

“WELL, WELL, WELL…” the disembodied voice broke its deep and terrifying laughter to say. The eyes squinted perceptively around him.

He pressed harder at his ears to keep the sound from bursting his eardrums.

“AND WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?” The voice rhetorically crooned in a trill of several different pitches and voices at once. “I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I SHOULD BE IMPRESSED OR DISGUSTED THAT SOMETHING SO PUNY MANAGED TO MEANDER SO DEEPLY INTO THIS PLACE UNNOTICED.”

The boy felt his breath leave him as the red glowing from the eyes bled into the yellow surroundings changing the mat yellow into the red hue. The eyes were now a terrifying black, split pupils inverting into a soulless white…and then there were bright blue flames everywhere, and that was the last straw that led the boy to break down into a terrified scream that resonated as loudly as the angry voice. The flames grew higher as they drew nearer and nearer to his small and mild frame.

“SOOOO…” the voice boomed suddenly rising in pitch, “ARE YOU _REALLY_ A PATHETIC MEAT-SACK OR ARE YOU JUST DISGUISING YOURSELF AS SUCH? HUMMM?”

At the point, the boy couldn’t tell if this question was meant as rhetorical or not. The threatening way the unnatural blue flames licked closer to his body, however, was not a great motivator to convince him to answer. He just screamed louder and wished, wished, wished with all his might that the heat that emanated from the flames would not mar his skin.

The voice laughed in mirthful delight and the deep quality of the tone let into a nasal tenor. “WHELP! No complaints here. If you’re not up for playing my game then I’m not up for playing with YOU!” the voice dropped to the monstrous, and low tone for the last word just in time for the flames to wrap around the youth. The voice laughed manically.

It would be the last thing he would ever hear, the boy thought mirthlessly as the conflagration descended onto his person and the sweltering heat surrounded him. He gently closed his eyes and willed his beating heart to slow into a gentle death as the raging fire burned him alive.

—A death that never came.

Suddenly the heat was gone. Suddenly the laughing was gone. Suddenly there was silence. Pain never greeted him, and his eyelids still glowed pink denoting to the bright lights that lingered behind them. He let out a light breath and opened his eyes to find a wide white orb inches from his own. He let out a pathetic scream of surprise and fell suddenly onto a suddenly very solid ground. 

He was surrounded by whiteness in the distance once more. There were no more flames in a sea of red nor were there unnaturally white pupiled, black eyes floating about…but there were a series of very peculiar triangle cyclopes attired in top hats and bow ties in a tight circle surrounding him. As he felt all their eyes quirked with interested amusement.

The boy held his breath tightly within him, as though breathing would disrupt the calm that had settled upon this small army of yellow monsters. He was sure that they would make him erupt in angry flames at any given moment.

Silence settled and the eyes moved in all directions at once taking in every inch of his person.

“What are you?” the voice asked again in a surprisingly neutral tone as the triangle directly in front of him drew his small black fingers contemplatively across the surface below his bow tie. He leaned back, and the boy noted from his peripheral vision that the other triangles were slowly merging into the one directly in front of him. Stupidly it was somewhere between the merging that he realized that the voice probably belonged to this…triangle. 

The boy flinched noticeably as the floating creature suddenly shot his arm out and jerked him up painfully by his wrist. “Ow!” he bit out suddenly eyes widening as he bit down harshly on his lip to keep from making any other sound. But the creature seemed unperturbed by the sound as his large eye scoured him looking for something indefinite.

The triangle shook him carelessly and the movement brought a shock of pain to the joint of his shoulder. “You…” the triangle chirped in his high pitched and grating voice, “are a human meat-sack,” he said in a suddenly substantial surprise. He shook him again eye widening and shrinking in scrutiny. “Kid,” he demanded suddenly. “How did you get in here?”

Mouth terribly dry, he swallowed hard and unsure how to respond. It was a thought that had not necessarily crossed his mind since he had appeared in the darkness in a bodiless bundle.

The creature dug his hands sharply into the soft flesh of his tiny wrists but this time he was prepared and withheld the gasp of pain by biting deeper into his bottom lip. He was dropped suddenly and unceremoniously to the ground.

The triangle rolled his eye in a definite irritation. “Jeez kid, for someone to have stumbled into this place—” the beast gestured grandly around him “—and to have caught the attention of someone as _amazing_ and _powerful_ as myself your pretty daft.” He tapped illustratively to the side of the upper portion of his point just below his top hat.

It took a moment to read the gesture as one that implied he didn’t have much in his brain and the boy was suddenly very angry. He didn’t have anything but his brains and for this thing to imply that he didn’t even have that was terrible beyond words. He never got attention for anything from anyone at the temple unless he was figuring out some difficult problem. Not like his sister that was constantly showered with love and affection for something as simple as breathing. He felt his eyes water, and his anger mount. He wondered what happened to that pacifying calm that had been impossible to stop. It would have been so much more useful now before he did something stupid like he always did before he got angry.

“If–if you can’t tell that I’m smart just by looking at me you must not be that great,” he griped angrily as his cheeks burned red in embarrassment. The comeback was childish, and particularly…dumb…but he never really considered himself very good at comebacks in the first place so that didn’t mean much. Frankly, he was rather weak in any area of confrontation. Though he did regret the comment at soon as it left his mouth as he usually did when he opened his mouth when upset.

The yellow beast looked blank-faced and unreadable, which brought another trill of fear through him. There was a moment where it seemed that the creature was going to lash out at him. Tensing in preparation for aggression the burnet nearly jumped out of his skin when a loud and obnoxious laughing shocked his system.

“He speaks!” the creature laughed jovially and as he did the entire space around them shook. “Well, apparently there is _something_ in that head of yours…though I’m not entirely sure what at this point.” The yellow beast rotated slightly crossing its small black arms in front of its bow tie. The entire world tilted with it and the boy was suddenly slipping across the sharp incline the non-surface took at that moment. He attempted to scream but the wind rushed out of him and he scrambled not to slip into the abyss. The world returned to an upright position and the triangle floated over him suddenly. The boy slipped onto his back and tried to become as small as possible as the eye roved over him in intense contemplation.

“Welp.” The small black hands clapped together with a loud emphasis. “Congratulations, I’m interested. You have a small portion of my attention completely on you.” The creature leaned forward and flicked at the bill of his hat. “Tell me Pine Tree, _I’m dying to know_ ,” it leaned in closer and the boy felt suddenly very small as he was scrutinized. “What do you want by being here?”

The brunet’s bottom lip trembled. He could not remember once in his life ever having so much attention on himself. He decided that he hated it. He choked and sputtered and found that no words came to him. He wondered idly how it had come to this.

The creature looked suddenly disappointed and glared at him with blank eyes.

As much as he hated to admit it, the look of disappointment always had an effect on him. He found his hands getting sweaty, and felt a cold flash shock his system. He opened and closed his mouth several times, wishing away his anxiety of talking to someone other than his select few. He should have expected it; that nothing would come out. Only, this time he had really hoped it would be different.

Sharply pointed black fingers grazed across his chest and he found himself choking on his own spit. He balled his hands into fists as he began to breathe in quick and shallow breaths. The creature grabbed onto his shirt and lifted him up a few inches off of the ground only to slam him back onto the ground. It caused his head to snap back against that wall of nothing and made him see stars and shot a sharp pain through him. “ _Come on_ …” the monster grumbled, “Jeez do I really have to soften you up to get you to do something?”

Reaching up to cradle his head he swung a limp fist strike the aggressor back. “Don’t do that!” he growled out, wincing as his fist connected with what felt like solid metal.

The beast slammed him against the solid surface again. “Then answer my question, Pine Tree,” it snapped back.

With his head still reeling it became a little easier to mutter out, “Pine Tree?”

The creature just gave an irritated huff as it used its free hand to flick at the bill of his cap a second time.

“ _S-stop that_!” he stuttered as he tried to keep his hat from falling off and being lost in the nothingness.

 

“No.” The creature answered simply, looking increasingly irate. “This is why I hate meat-sacks. They are all stupid,” he said to himself exasperated. “How did you get here, kid?” 

The boy moaned in pain as the stars continued to flash through his head. “T-the stars…” he answered suddenly with a flash of insight as the throbbing speckles that crossed his vision reminded him of the velvet blackness. He tensed again waiting to be slammed down again as the triangular body above him stiffened.

“What was that?”

He closed his eyes to stop the spinning, though doing so only made it worse. He moaned again and tried to organize his thoughts as he thought back to the weird dream like sequence that led him to this nothing with a…whatever a one-eyed talking triangle was. “T-the stars. I was floating through stars and came to this light. That’s how I’m here.” After answering the question, he felt embarrassed again. With such a stupid answer as that, perhaps it would have been better not to answer at all. He just hoped that the creature would not try beating him against the ground again or catching him on fire…or whatever he could do to hurt him if he didn’t like the answer.

But when he opened his eyes he figured that the other might not be interested in doing such. The yellow individual quickly withdrew his hand and floated backward a few paces. From what the boy cold make out from its visage the thing seemed to be once again contemplative before shifting to an almost pleasant demeanor as it smiled with its closed eye.

He tried to sit up slightly as he became suddenly apprehensive of the situation. The manic happiness was far more disquieting in comparison to the ferocious anger he had been originally greeted with. It seemed too…unhingned. 

“I see.” It said simply shifting and growing into a larger size as a wheel —filled with the oddest collection of items —materialized around him like some kind of yantra he’d been forced to study. “Well then, Pine Tree, I suppose I should properly introduce myself. I am Bill Cipher, the most powerful, omnipotent, and transcendent being you will ever have the pleasure of interacting with in your pathetic little life…yadda, yadda, yadda…hold that thought.” The being—apparently known as Bill Cipher—paused for a moment as the symbols around him dissipated and his body became a window to a slew of moving images flickering far too quickly for him to be able to properly differentiate. There were several flashes that seemed to remind him of something, however. The moment quickly passed and then the beast was suddenly solid again. “Ahhh, yes…and we will get very acquainted shortly.” The beast drew near again and the boy slid as far back as he could which seemed to make the other more agitated. “We really need to do something about those social anxieties of yours, however.” The creature brightened up with a joyous gasp. “Oh! I have an idea! You have done me quite the favor by coming here. You have changed all kinds of things for me and opened new possibilities. If you’re interested, for a very small price I can fix you up so that you're less anxious. Whatdaya say, Pine Tree? Wanna make a deal? You scratch my back, I scratch yours?”

In the back of his mind, he could hear something, that sounded suspiciously like one of his tutors warning him against making deals with…some kind of beast, he couldn’t remember which. But the idea was tempting. His sister had always tried so hard to help him make more friends and have an easier time talking to adults. As it was now, he had no friends and struggled to talk to anyone outside his family without prolonged exposure, and even then it was full of awkward pauses and apparently inappropriate comments. 

“You don’t have a back though,” he argued suddenly, and inexplicably as he always did. He felt the embarrassment weigh down on him heavily. He suddenly wanted to cry, so instead, he warped his arms around himself tightly and closed his eyes preparing for a scathing retort. The laughing that came instead caught him off guard and brought his eyes up to the triangular being… _Bill_ , he reminded himself silently…and watched in apparent shock as it closed its eye and laughed loudly.

“Kid,” it said through an annoying bout of laughs, “You take things _way_ too literally. — **and** you're horribly awkward. It’s no wonder you have no friends.” The comment stung, so he held himself more tightly as he looked down at his shoelaces. “I am surprised I didn’t recognize you, though. I’m normally better at that kinda thing. Mmm…especially with your family. But, in my defense, you are an easily forgettable kid. I hate meat-sacks, and slimy runny nose kids are a million times worse. Besides, as far as kids go your particularly pathetic. Jeesh…still wet the bed, can’t talk to anyone without your sister’s help, you’re a crybaby, and get into all kinds of trouble. Your parents can’t even put you into group classes because your social problems. You’re holding back your sister because of it too!” the triangle counted the litany of reasons on his small hands, and much to the boy’s horror suddenly grew an extra finger on his hand for each additional reason after he ran out of fingers. “She could be making way more friends if she wasn’t stuck with you all the time. And you know what they say, neediness causes resentment. At this rate, in a few years, she is going to _hate_ you. Awww…and won't that be terrible? Then you will be all by yourself, alone forever. 

“And you know, your parents like your sister better than you. When she stops liking you, just think of what they will do!” By this time, tears began freely flowing down the boy’s face. He couldn’t look away. What the thing was saying made sense and bespoke of all of his fears. He shook his head vigorously at the comment, because, really he did not know what his parents would do when his sister hated him. Holding as tightly to himself as he did every word the creature said he felt his hope drop as the expression on the monster’s face shifted. “Aww, that’s terrible, Pine Tree. Listen, you really helped me out by coming here today. So, even though you're too stupid to know, I’ll cut you some slack and tell you what parents do to kids that the don’t like.” Conspiratorially the monster leaned closer and rested his too many fingered hand on his back and patted it firmly enough to jerk him forward slightly. “Well, they get _rid_ of them. And you know what happens when parents get rid of their kids, don’t you?” the boy shook his head again. “You don’t?!” the beast cried aghast. “Well, I’m a nice guy Pine Tree, so I can tell you that too, free of charge. All kinds of bad things happen!” The triangles surface changes again and the boy watched as all kinds of horrible images of children having terrible things happened to them. He saw all ages of children crying, some with grotesque gashes or missing limbs, others being touched where they were not supposed to be…the images continued at a slow pace, enough so that he could understand what was happening in each situation, and each situation was worse than the last. “They can even DIE!” The beast said, his voice taking on the deep and multifaceted tone. It was enough to jerk him in surprise, but it passed somewhat to be replaced with horror as he watched the images change to children of all ages being killed horribly. He watched as a baby was thrown into a sewer, as a young child was beaten to death…the deaths continued until finally, they stopped. Instead, there were images of dead children in all different stages of decomposition—he closed his eyes and sobbed loudly as the images suddenly stopped and the monster slapped him on the back a second time.

“I know, Pine Tree, it’s terrible, really terrible. But I like you, even though you’re a worthless hunk of meat, that will amount to nothing if you continue down this path…I know you have a lot of potential, kid. Potential is something I can work with. You don’t have to be the worst example of a kid to ever exist. I can even help you so that your parents don’t get rid of you. But we gotta make a deal. It’s the only way.” 

Sobbing loudly the boy leaned into the triangle who grunted in irritation, “Oy, watch the eye kid,” and continued to pat his back harshly. “So, whatdoya say kid? Do we have a deal? I help you a bit with one of your more inconvenient social anxieties and you help me with something?”


End file.
